Extract from Mr. O'Connell's Speech.

"We have hitherto supported to our utmost a Ministry that have outlawed the repealers, and I am now going to Parliament to give that support for the last time. In the struggle which will ensue the Tories will obtain a victory over them, and must come into office, and from that time my connection with the Whigs totally ends on the present basis. Let it be remembered what our support of the Whigs was. I have often ludicrously described it as Paddy with the broken pane. He stuffed his old hat into it, not to let in the light, for it would not do that, but to keep out the cold. So it was with the Whigs. We supported them, not for any benefit they were doing to our cause, for they were going too slow for us, but to keep out the Tories.

"Yes, there is a movement going forward in the public mind: statesmen may mitigate or temper it; they may make it proceed more slowly and cautiously; they may put a drag on it to prevent its hurrying into a revolution; but they cannot utterly stop it. The human mind

is in a state of expansion. Education itself is expanding it, and making the movement more general. Thousands are now beginning to read the newspapers that were before unable to do so; and they are thus acquiring a relish for politics, and a greater keenness of appetite, too, from having no other source from which they could acquire any other relish.

"The Tories have gained the ascendency in the Government, but that ascendency cannot continue long. I think it is utterly impossible that they continue long in power. It is not in the nature of things that they should. Their own party disaffections cannot allow them to keep together; the great links that now bind them are a national antipathy against the Irish, and a bigoted hatred towards the religion of Ireland. That chain must soon burst, and the result will be that the Tory faction will be scattered in the winds, the Radical reformers will obtain the helm, and England, Ireland, and Scotland will once again have a chance of ranking foremost in the history of the civilized world.

"Parliament is too long, and the period of

its duration must, therefore, be reduced. The principle on which the representation is arranged must be also altered. It cannot be endured that Harwich, with its voters, is to have an equal number of representatives, with Cork, with its 750,000 inhabitants. Such a system cannot be suffered to continue longer, and it must, therefore, be reformed in the first place, and the representation extended to the full limits that common sense will point out. The franchise must be also extended, so as to afford an adequate representation for the whole people. Above all things, the ballot must be introduced. The Ministry who shall have my support hereafter must purchase it. They must bribe me. My bribe is extended suffrage; my bribe is amended representation; my bribe is the ballot; my bribe is, shorten the duration of Parliament. I will support no Ministry that does not promise to support these measures.

""Tis time, full time, Heaven knows, that our rights and privileges be conceded to us; and, unless I can find a Ministry ready and willing to extend the franchise (for this is the utmost

they can do to universalize it were impracticable); to grant us a more rational and satisfactory representation; to give us the ballot, the honest ballot, and with it short Parliaments (three years is, in my mind, a space quite sufficiently prolonged): unless I suspect I can find a Ministry determined to carry these measures as a matter of justice to the oppressed people, my place, at least, will be in the opposition for the rest of my parliamentary life. But, while I speak in this strain, imagine not that it is my purpose to abandon the repeal, or to mitigate in the minutest degree the fervid zeal and ardour with which I have bound myself to follow up that glorious cause. Never more deeply than at the present moment was it the unalterable conviction of my soul that there is not, there was not, nor can there ever be, hope for Ireland in anything but the repeal of the legislative act of Union. This great national fact is clearly manifested by the course of conduct which England is at this moment pursuing.

"Our business is, then, to take the stand we have taken; our object is to place our views on the broad basis I have mentioned.

At present there is no symptom of a reform society in England; but when I go there I shall again blow the trumpet of reform. I will ask them, have all the faculties of the English people been extinguished? They have displayed genius and ability of the highest order. Some of the most sublime works that ever emanated from the human intellect have been produced in England. Their improvements in machinery have been brought to a state of perfection, until they have made machinery almost to think and perform the duty of sentient beings; and, oh! disgrace on the party that would keep them in the position they are at present. I admit the high qualities in many instances of the English people, but there is nothing I admire them more for than this: when they go to battle, it has ever been the determination among them, as it should be, for every man ought to go into battle with such determination, to die rather than yield.

"Their most glorious victories, Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, were all gained on that principle. They went to battle not to be conquered; they went to battle to die if neces